Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Dravid Dropped!

The Indian team’s selection for the Pakistan tour has evoked a lot of strong opinions. A lot of them are due to the dropping of Dravid from the team. I think that this was a right decision taken by the selectors. Start grooming the youngsters and gradually phase out the oldies.

Its great to see that the fans have not resorted to effigy burnings and protest marches. Tells a lot about the civilised behaviour of the Bangaloreans! There are a lot of other issues of national importance which require such acts. Neways, if either Ganguly and tendulkar were to be dropped, then there sure would have been a lot of profits for the effigy makers!
And coming back to the team, there are 6 openers, 5 bowlers, 1 wicket keeper and 3 middle order batsmen. Now the headache is to pick 2 openers from 6 and somehow get 4 middle order batsmen from the 3 chosen. A task only the Indian selectors can do! Dhoni, am sure, will miss Dravid against a tough opposition like Pakistan. And am sure that Pakistan will be happy to hear this news.

And coming back to the openers dilemma, Sachin will not bat anywhere else (his feelings are of paramount interest to the team management and the selectors than the results ) and Saurav cannot bat anywhere else. So, the other openers picked would probably be warming the benches on all the 5 matches.

Let the action begin. The build up to this series is quite encouraging for the Indians. They have done well in England, won the Twenty20 World Cup and performed up to their expextations against the tough aussies. Hope the better team wins! And that obviously is India on current form!